Indeed as you know this lens has been on my list for a good while now. Stills saving the pennies. Maybe next year. I'm sure you will love it, didn't realise macro work was your thing, but will double up as a nice prime also.

Looking forward to seeing some more pics, and you will have to let me have a play with it at crimbo!

Just because it says Macro on the box doesn't mean it's specifically for macro work, it's just that some manufacturers choose to stick it in the product name, particularly the likes of Sigma and Tamaron. It is essentially a 150mm prime with the ability to focus very close, if you look a lot of primes you'll be suprised at how close most of them focus, it's just that a lot don't stick macro in the name because 9/10 people looking at lenses are going to take the focusing distance into account when they buy.

Matt has at least one lens that focuses really close, this might be why your confused about him not having a 'macro' lens. Effectively everyone on here with a DSLR probably has a macro capable lens of some kind, it just might not say it on the tin so to speak.

As Matt has touched upon this should make a good prime lens particularly for portrait work (although it might be too sharp for a lot of portraits). I'm keen to see a head shot from around 12ft away at about f5 to see how much of the torso is in shot and what the bokeh and sharpness is like. Have you got an example like this or have you been using it exclusively for macro stuff?

Well yeah I know that much about macro lenses, your refeering to true 1:1 or not macro ability I assume, yep some normal lenses have 'macro' wacked on them as they can focus quite close, but I remember matt telling me about an old school nikon macro lens he got off ebay for cheap is all, cant quite remember,

I got this lens for 3 reasons:

1) Macro work at 1:1, I.e. true macro , not 'near macro'

2) Portraiture work, I wanted sharp as I could get

3) A prime 'short telephoto' for some wildlife work, I plan to get 1.4x and 2x converters as I've seen that (at least on the 1.4) you still get much sharper images than from a canon 70-200 F2.8 L IS for example, with 1.4 it would be 210mm, and obviously a 300mm prime at 2x, spot on for my needs, I know that at 150, 210 it will be almost as sharp at either focal length, as for the 2x converter, ill find out, surely at least as good as a zoom L glass.

And yep was in the studio last night getting some portrait stuff, ill upload later on

Certainly a sharp lens from what we can see from the resized JPEGS Ben!

Interesting reasons for getting this particular lens I have to say... I can understand No. 1 for sure, especially if you'd like to explore macro a little, but reasons 2 & 3 make less sense for me if you don't mind me saying...

Reason 2 is purely an opinion thing for me; I think 150mm is a bit long for a portrait and I also think that portrait lenses can be "too" sharp, but as I say that's just me...

Reason 3 is a bit different though; swapping (or buying) this particular setup (150mm + 1.4x & 2x teleconverters) over a 70-200 IS L lens seems a bit strange to me. Personally I see the Canon L has having many more pros than the Sigma setup... With the Sigma you do get a bit of extra light thanks to the larger aperture but the IS will offset this and I'm sure with the 2x teleconverter you wouldn't want to use f1.4 anyway lest you run the risk of having too shallow a depth of field. I also think that a zoom lens offers huge benefits over 3 fixed focal lengths for wildlife photography; by the time you've popped your lens off, chucked on the appropriate teleconverter and put it all back on again the thing you might've wanted to get a shot of has probably fooked off. A naff example I'm sure, but a zoom lens will allow you to photograph a duck at 200mm and then a heron flying over it's head at 125mm... a lens and teleconverters won't. Opinion at the end of course, and though the bokeh may be slightly uglier (though with L glass I doubt it) I also think a 70-200 will give you a much better range for portraiture. Ok, it's a strangely big-looking lens for that kind of work, but as users of the "nifty 50"on APS-C will know, 80mm is a beautiful short telephoto focal length for portraits...

3) A prime 'short telephoto' for some wildlife work, I plan to get 1.4x and 2x converters as I've seen that (at least on the 1.4) you still get much sharper images than from a canon 70-200 F2.8 L IS for example, with 1.4 it would be 210mm, and obviously a 300mm prime at 2x, spot on for my needs, I know that at 150, 210 it will be almost as sharp at either focal length, as for the 2x converter, ill find out, surely at least as good as a zoom L glass.

Depends on what you mean by 'as good' really, image koala-tea yes but I think it might drive you crazy trying to shoot wildlife without a zoom, but it depends on what you have in mind by wildlife I guess. Obviously very useful for shooting birds on a feeder since they'll always be a set distance, less so when roaming around.

Reason 2 is purely an opinion thing for me; I think 150mm is a bit long for a portrait and I also think that portrait lenses can be "too" sharp, but as I say that's just me...

You're not alone on the too sharp issue.

Portrait is a little ambigious a term, could be anything from face to full body, 150mm would be headshot only I think. I work at around 110mm for portraits but go for the head, shoulders and upper chest.

I'm just thinking at 150mm you're going to be halfway across a hall trying to get a head and shoulders portrait going on... Perhaps it's not so important but I would think it would be hard to connect with whoever you're photographing when you're that far away...

It's too long for a head and shoulders shot that's for sure, it would put you back a lot longer than the ideal 12ft from the subject so the perspective would be less than ideal regardless of connecting with them.

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